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Outage and Usage Alerts

Now you have an easy way to stay informed about your account. Sign up for Alerts! You can choose which alerts you want to receive and how you want to receive them – by text email, phone, or all three.

Types of Alerts

Outage Alerts: Stay informed if the power goes out. Receive notifications with the latest information about your power outage, and we'll notify you:

If we're tracking severe weather that could cause power outages in your area

If we detect a power outage in your area, with the estimated time we’ll have power restored

If the estimated restoration time changes

Once we have restored power in your area

Of any upcoming system improvements in your area.

New! Text STATUS for an update

Usage Alerts: Receive alerts and updates about your electricity usage and estimated cost - all made possible by your smart meter! You can choose to receive any of the following alerts:

Usage Update: Receive weekly updates with your usage, estimated cost, and daily averages for the current billing period

Usage Amount Exceeded: Set a monthly electricity usage or dollar amount, and we'll notify you if/when you exceed that amount

Usage Change: We'll notify you of big changes to your daily usage. Specifically, if your daily usage is 50% higher or 75% lower than your past 30-day average usage for three days in a row

New! Text USAGE for an update

New texting option!

We've added new texting options to our Alerts service for you! If you've signed up to receive Outage Alerts or Usage Alerts by text, now you can text any of the keywords below to 267898 and receive the following information on your account.

How it works

Get started online

Log in to your online account, or simply create an account if you don’t have one

Choose the alerts you want and how you want to receive them

Enter your contact information for each of the alerts you'd like to receive

Receive alerts by text, email, phone or all three

Add up to five contacts for each type of delivery method (text, email and/or phone)

Choose when you want to receive Outage Alerts

For Outage Alerts, you may select a Do Not Disturb time if there are certain hours during the day that you don’t want to receive alerts

Once you sign up

If you choose to receive alerts by text, the first time you add a cell phone number, you'll receive a text asking to confirm your enrollment. Reply "Yes" to complete your enrollment and you're done! (You only need to do this once per phone number.)

You can change your contact information or stop receiving alerts at any time

We do not charge for text messages, however your wireless carrier may charge for text messaging and data rates. Check with your wireless carrier for details

To sign up for Alerts, please log in to your online account here, or it’s easy to create an account if you don’t have one.

Once you log in to your account, click the “Manage Alerts” button. Add your contact information for the alerts you want to receive, check the box to agree to the terms and conditions, then click the “Save Preferences” button at the bottom of the page. (Note: if you choose to receive alerts by text, you will receive a text on your mobile phone asking you to confirm your enrollment. Reply ‘Yes’ to that text message to complete the enrollment.)

The first time you add a mobile phone number to receive Alerts by text, we'll send a text to that phone to confirm your enrollment. Reply "YES" or "Y" (without the quotation marks) to confirm you want to register your phone to receive Alerts. You will only need to do this once per phone, not for each type of Alert you choose to receive. If you previously confirmed your enrollment for Outage Alerts, and later choose to receive Usage Alerts on the same phone number, your phone is already verified and you will start to receive Usage Alerts without the need to confirm your enrollment again.

There are a few different scenarios that can cause a user not to receive a registration text message.

Unsupported mobile carrier: At this time, our Alerts are supported by major mobile phone carriers and most others. US Cellular currently does not support sending text(s) longer than 160 characters from company "short codes" such as 267898 (CMPTXT). We are continually looking for ways to enhance our Alerts and anticipate adding more mobile carriers in the future.

Text messaging blocked: If your mobile carrier is supported, you may have a setting on your mobile phone's account that is blocking incoming text(s). Please contact your mobile provider to ensure that text messaging is enabled.

Short code messaging blocked: If your mobile carrier is supported, you may have a setting turned on for your phone's account that is blocking short code messages. Short code messages are any messages that come from a short number such as 267898 (CMPTXT). Please contact your mobile carrier to change your account setting to allow short code messaging.

Please reply with exactly "YES" or "Y" (without the quotation marks) with no other characters or punctuation in your response. If you have added an automated signature to your text message, remove those words or characters so that your response is exactly "YES" or "Y" (without the quotation marks.

Yes. You can sign up to receive Alerts for each account in your name. Please set your contact information and preferences for each account.. If you choose to receive Outage Alerts and a power outage is affecting your service at multiple locations, you will receive separate Outage Alerts for each location.

If you have signed up to receive Outage Alerts and we detect a power outage at your location, you will receive Outage Alerts. We use several factors to determine which customers are affected by a power outage, including information from smart meters and reported outages by customers. Sometimes our outage prediction will miss some customers that are affected by a power outage, so they would not receive outage alerts. You can always check our online outage map or outage listing page to see if there is an outage in your area.

Yes. Power outages can occur at any time, and if there are certain hours you would not like to receive messages from us, you can set a Do Not Disturb time period. When you sign up for Alerts, the default setting for this preference suspends alerts between 10 PM at night and 8 AM the next morning. You can change this setting by logging in to your online account.

You can set your own Do Not Disturb time period. When you sign up for Alerts, the default setting for this preference suspends alerts between 10 PM at night and 8 AM the next morning. You can change this setting by logging in to your online account.

You'll be able to start receiving Outage Alerts about an hour after you sign up. Once you sign up for Outage Alerts, we will notify you when we detect a power outage at your location, and provide an estimated time when power will be restored. We will notify you if that estimated time changes, and we will notify you once power has been restored.

No. If your power is out, our first priority is to get your power back on as quickly and safely as possible. We will do our best to keep you informed and provide estimated restoration times that are accurate and up to date.

We use several factors to determine which customers are affected by a power outage, including information from smart meters and reported outages by customers. Sometimes our outage prediction will miss some customers that are affected by a power outage, so they would not receive outage alerts. You can always check our online outage map or outage listing page to see if there is an outage in your area..

Also, messages we send could get delayed or not delivered by your wireless carrier if your wireless signal is poor, or there is extremely high wireless traffic.

We use several factors to determine which customers are affected by a power outage, including information from smart meters and reported outages by customers. Sometimes we may predict that a nearby outage caused you to lose power when it really didn’t.

When a power outage occurs, we estimate when power will be restored using the best information we have at the time. As we gather more information about the cause of an outage, or the repairs that are needed to safely restore power, we may update the estimated time power will be restored. You will receive an alert with the new time estimate, as well as confirmation when your power has been restored.

Sometimes severe weather can cause extensive damage and widespread outages. In these cases, damage assessment is more complex. Severe weather may linger and, of course, securing public safety is the first priority and providing an estimated time when power will be restored may take a bit more time. We will send updates with an estimated restoration time.

Please check the circuit breaker at your property. If resetting circuit breakers does not restore power, please report your outage online or by calling 800.696.1000. There may be additional damage at your location that caused the outage.

Usage Alerts

You'll receive a weekly alert with your current bill-to-date progress, leading up to your bill each month. this alert is sent 7, 14, 21, and 28 days from when your billing period started, so the day you receive the alert may change from month to month.

Usage Change alerts let you know when there has been a change in your electricity usage. There are a number of factors that can affect your electricity use. For example, you might have a faulty device or appliance in your home, such as a water pump being stuck on. Or you might receive this alert if you make a large seasonal change in your electricity usage, such as using a pool in the summer, or using a heat pump or electric heat during the winter. Or, your usage may change based on the number of people at your house. Your electricity usage is probably a lot lower when you're away on vacation, and may go up if you have friends or family staying with you.

If you want to learn more about your electricity usage, you can use Energy Manager service, enabled by your smart meter. More information about Energy Manager.

Usage Alerts are available to residential and small business customers that have a smart meter. A small number of customers that have more than one meter on their account may not be able to receive Usage Alerts at this time. If you want more information on this, please contact us and provide your account number and name so we can look into it for you.

Usage Alerts provide an approximate cost for the electricity used during your current billing period. Some costs aren't included, such as taxes, prior balances, or late fees. Also, part of your electricity cost comes from your electricity supplier. You can choose from several electricity suppliers and pricing options, and the supply price we use for Usage Alerts may not match the electricity supply choice you have chosen.

Usage Alerts use information received each day from your smart meter. If we are not receiving information regularly from your smart meter, it may delay or prevent Usage Alerts from being sent to you. Also, if your smart meter was recently replaced, you may not receive Usage Alerts until your next billing cycle. Please contact us and provide your name and account number so we can follow up on this for you!

Our alerts are an automated service and the email address that delivers them are not monitored. There are several links provided in the email alert that you can use to contact us or click here to contact us.

Before you change your cell phone number, please text STOP to 267898 to stop receiving Alerts at that number. You can also log in to your online account and delete your cell phone number, and to add your new cell phone number.

How do I report an outage?

How do we restore power?

Our emergency service restoration plan aims to help our crews repair downed lines and restore power to customers within the shortest time possible. While restoring everyone’s power is important, getting critical facilities back on line – places like hospitals and shelters – has to be a priority. Visit How We Restore Power for more information.

How do I find out when my power will be restored?

Sign up for Outage Alerts and you will be notified by text message, email, phone or all three. We'll keep you informed with an estimated time of restoration, and an alert when power is restored. Log in to your online account to sign up. You can also visit Outage Central to view estimated restoration times.